World Conference is Not the Voice of Grassroots Indigenous Peoples

Reminder - The High Level Plenary Meeting (that is not a World Conference on indigenous Peoples) at the UN, begins in the morning

By Glenn Morris
Censored News

Hello, all,

I am sending this reminder to folks in Denver, that the HLPM begins in the morning. The pomp and circumstance of the opening session begins at 6:30 am, Denver time. The UN is scheduled to webcast the meeting at this url: http://webtv.un.org/#. We will be watching the proceedings all day in the Political Science library on the 3rd floor of the new Academic Building. The Fourth World Center will also be open for any of your academic or research needs. Any of you who will be joining us to watch and comment on the proceedings should download the final Outcome Document, which can be found on the HLPM/WCIP website at: http://wcip2014.org/. The program is here: http://wcip2014.org/wcip-2014/programme. The Tuesday session is only on the afternoon: 1-4 pm, Denver time. We will be viewing that session, also.

I am including people who are not in Denver on this message because my hope is that we can all share our critical comments about the session via Twitter. The Fourth World Center handle is @4thWorld Center, and my personal handle is: @gtm303. The official HLPM handle is @WCIP2014, #WCIP2014. We have developed a critical hashtag: #WCIP2014sham, that we can use for providing critical commentary. Once again, I've never been on Twitter before, so, If I can do it, anyone can. I look forward to seeing you all in the Twitter world. 

To reiterate, the point of our observing and critiquing the HLPM is not to engage in an exercise of masochism -- wallowing in what we all know will be a negative outcome. Rather, it is to provide a record of resistance to this process that many of us have vocally critiqued as another attempt to finalize the colonization, domestication and total domination of our peoples and our homelands. It is also for those of us who have been in this struggle for some time to provide spiritual grounding, history and analysis for younger people to continue our resistance to invasion and colonization. While it might be dis-spiriting to see a number of other indigenous individuals collaborating in the HLPM process, we should take strength and courage in the knowledge that many of us remain in active resistance, and will continue to organize, mobilize and continue the struggle beyond the Kabuki theatre that will play out over the next two days in New York.

In Struggle,

Glenn

Program:
Monday 22 September
9am-1pm – Opening Plenary Meeting
3-6pm – Roundtable 1: United Nations system action to implement the rights of Indigenous peoples
3-6pm – Roundtable 2: Implementation of the rights of Indigenous peoples at the national and local level

Tuesday 23 September
3-5pm – Roundtable 3: Indigenous peoples’ lands, territories and resources
3-5pm – Panel Discussion: Indigenous priorities for the post-2015 sustainable development agenda
5-6pm – Closing Plenary Meeting